After a relatively easy 13-hour flight from Newark, we have arrived in Beijing and settled into the hotel. The picture above is the gate in from of our hotel, which is just off the Wangfujing shopping street, just to the East of Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City.We basically flew over the North Pole to get here and approached Beijing from the Northwest, over Mongolia, hooked around south of Beijing and then North to the airport. Mongolia and the land north-west of Beijing was dry, brown desert, with breaks of sharp hills / mountains.
Once we landed, however, there were more trees and greenery around the airport than expected. Traffic was slow getting into the city but we eventually arrived, checked in, showered, and changed into more comfortable clothes - as it was around 80F and sunny.
We went out into the streets for a bit of a walk and some dinner, though our bodies felt it was morning. Beijing is exactly 12 hours ahead of the East Coast. We immediately met a couple of Beijing University students who invited us to their student exhibition up around the corner from the hotel. Here are the two artists we met with their artwork:
They then showed us to a restaurant where we had some dinner. The young waitstaff were very interested in Annabel and came over to play with her. In general, people here are very interested in children and will come right up to play with them in a way that most Westerners would find disconcerting in its forwardness. However, it's a very interesting cultural difference relating to privacy and personal space.
After dinner we wandered around the Wangfujing shopping district, went into the Beijing Olympics store where Annabel got a mascot doll, and went down a very crowded vendor / foodstall alley.
After that, it was time to go to bed and try to get onto the right schedule. More tonight, as right now Laura and Annabel are off to the Temple of Heaven, Ti'ananmen Sq. and the Forbidden City while I work from the hotel. We'll try to upload Laura's pictures tonight as well.
